Otherwise Phyllis Part 49

"_Coward!_"

The carrying power of Phil's voice had been deplored from her earliest youth by her aunts. Her single word, flung across the heads of the auditors, splashed upon the tense silence like a stone dropped suddenly into a quiet pond.

"Put him out!" yelled some one who attributed this impiety to the usual obstreperous boy. A number of young fellows in Phil's neighborhood, who knew the source of the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, broke into laughter and jeers.

Alexander Waterman knew that voice; he had seen Phil across the room, but had a.s.sumed that her presence was due to her vulgar curiosity, on which his wife had waxed wroth these many years. In his cogitations Phil was always an unaccountable and irresponsible being: it had not occurred to him that she might resent his veiled charges against her father and Amzi. Waterman, by reason of his long experience as a stump speaker, knew how to deal with interruptions. He caught up instantly the challenge Phil had flung at him.

"Coward?" he repeated. "I should like to ask you, my fellow-citizens, who is the coward in this crisis? Is it I, who face you to-day clothed in my const.i.tutional guaranty of free and untrammeled speech, to speak upon the issues of this grave crisis; or is it the conspirators who meet in dark rooms to plot and plunder?"

Applause and cheers greeted this reply. Men looked at each other and grinned, as much as to say, "Alec knows his business." In Phil's immediate vicinity a number of young men, lost in admiration of her temerity, and not without chivalrous instincts, jeered the orator's reply. In the middle of the room Fred Holton, who had gone to the meeting with some of his farmer neighbors that he met in Main Street, turned at the sound of Phil's voice. Before Waterman, luxuriating in his applause, could resume, Fred was on his feet.

"As this was called as a meeting of citizens, I have a right to be here.

We have listened for nearly an hour to a speech that has made nothing any clearer--that has, in fact, gone all round the pump without finding the handle. It's time we knew what it is the speaker wants done; it's time he came to the point and named these men who have robbed their friends and neighbors. Let's have the names right now before we go any further."

"Who's that talking? Put him out!"

The meeting was in disorder, and a dozen men were trying to talk.

Waterman, smiling patiently, rapped with the official gavel that Judge Walters wielded when counsel, in the heat of argument, transcended the bounds of propriety.

"It's Fred Holton," bellowed some one.

Waterman smiled in quiet scorn. He had recognized Fred Holton and was ready with his answer. One of his friends who had pushed through the crowd whispered in his ear.

"My friends," he began, in the indulgent tone of a grieved parent, "the gentleman who spoke a moment ago was quite right in remarking that this is a meeting of citizens. No one denies his right to speak or to interrupt other speakers if such be his idea of courtesy. But he will pardon me for suggesting that it is remarkable that he of all men should interrupt our friendly conference here and demand that names be mentioned, when, prompted by a sense of delicacy, I have refrained from mentioning his own name in this unpleasant connection. It's a name that has been identified far too closely with the affairs of this town. I should like to know how a member of the Holton family dare come to this meeting, when the suspension of one of our chief industries and the embarra.s.sments of the Sycamore Traction Company are directly attributable to the family of which this young gentleman is a member.

And while we sit here in conference, there are grave rumors afloat that we are threatened with even more serious difficulties. Within a few minutes word has reached me that a run is in progress upon certain of our banks." (There was a commotion throughout the room, and those near the doors were already pushing toward the street.)

"I beg of you, be not hasty; the hour calls for wise counsel--"

The shuffling of feet and overturning of chairs deadened the remainder of his speech.

Phil escaped quickly from the court-house, and seeing the throng in Main Street began a detour to reach Montgomery's Bank. Fred caught up with her and begged her to go home.

"There's going to be a row, Phil, and you'd better keep out of the way."

"If there's a row, that silly Waterman is responsible," Phil replied.

"I'm going to the bank to see Amy."

People were flocking to Main Street from all directions, and finding that she persisted in going on, Fred kept close beside her.

"He'll scold you if you do; you'd better go home," Fred urged as they reached Franklin Street, a block south of Main, and saw the packed streets at the First National corner.

They debated a moment; then Phil was seized with an idea.

"Fred, run over to the college and bring all the boys you can find at Mill's Field. Bring them up Main Street singing, and send a flying wedge through the mob;--that will smash it. Beat it, before the boys hear the row and mix in!"

Fred was off for the athletic field before she had finished speaking, and Phil sought the side door of Montgomery's Bank.

The throng at the intersection of Franklin Street and Main faced the First National. When the court-house clock boomed three the clerks inside made an effort to close the doors, and this had provoked a sharp encounter with the waiting depositors on the bank steps. The crowd yelled as it surged in sympathy with the effort to hold the doors open.

Some one threw a stone that struck the window in the middle of "National" in the sign, and this caused an outbreak of derisive cheers.

An intoxicated man on the steps turned round with difficulty and waved his hat.

"Come on, boys; we'll bust the safe and find out whether they've got any money or not."

Some of those who had gained entrance to the bank came out by the side door, and this served to divert attention to Franklin Street for a moment. There were cries that a woman who had received her money had been robbed, and this increased the uproar.

When Amzi took a last survey from his bank steps at three o'clock, some one yelled, "h.e.l.lo, Amzi!" A piece of brick flung with an aim worthy of a n.o.bler cause whizzed past his head and struck the door-frame with a sharp thwack and blur of dust. Amzi looked down at the missile with pained surprise and kicked it aside. His clerks besought him to come in out of harm's way; and yet no man in Montgomery had established a better right than he to stand exactly where he stood and view contemporaneous history in the making.

Howls and cat-calls followed the casting of the brick. Amzi lifted his hand to stay the tumult, but in his seersucker coat and straw hat his appearance was calculated to provoke merriment.

"Shoot the hat! Where's your earm.u.f.fs?" they jeered.

He could not make himself heard, and even if his voice had been equal to the occasion no one was in humor to listen to him. Bankers were unpopular in Montgomery that afternoon. No one had ever believed before that Amzi was capable of taking unfair advantage of his fellow-men; and yet Waterman's hearers were circulating the report in Main Street that Amzi had been buying Sycamore bonds at an infamously low price.

He flourished his cigar toward the First National, and then pointed it at his own door, but this bit of pantomime only renewed the mirth of the a.s.semblage. It seemed to be the impression that he was trying to advertise his bank, in the fashion of a "demonstrator" in a shop-window.

The disorder increased. Some one yelled:--

"What are you paying for Sycamore bonds?"

This was followed by an ominous turning and shifting. Amzi withdrew, closed and locked the bank doors, and showed his scorn of his calumniators by reversing with deliberation the tin card so that it announced "Bank Shut."

Amzi, his dignity ruffled by the reception accorded him, had retired to his private room when a familiar knock sounded on the Franklin Street door and he turned the latch to admit Phil.

"You--! what you doing down here? What right have you to be running the streets on a day like this?" he blurted, his eyes bulging wrathfully.

"Oh, chuck it, Amy! This is the best show we've had since the calliope blew up and killed the elephant in the circus when I was seven years old. I've been to the meeting. The Honorable Alec delivered a n.o.ble oration; he told them that everybody, including you and daddy, is crooked; he's the only honest man. It was the supreme and ultimate lim_ite_!"

"Want to burn me in effigy? Call me a horned plutocrat?"

"Oh, he didn't mention you, or daddy either, by name; just hinted that you were both trying to rob the Sycamore bondholders."

Amzi put his feet on a chair, settled his hat comfortably on the back of his head, and chewed his cigar meditatively.

"Thunder! You'd better keep away from indignation meetings where Alec's going to speak. You're likely to get shot."

"Not I, sir. I called him a coward, right there in the meeting. A most unladylike proceeding; indeed, it was, Amy.

"When rose the maid upon a chair, Some called her false: none named her fair: Nathless she saw nor sneer nor frown, But 'C-o-w-a-r-d' flung her challenge down."

Amzi ignored her couplets--Phil's impromptu verses always embarra.s.sed him--and demanded the particulars. He chuckled as she described the meeting. He cross-examined her to be sure that she omitted nothing. Her report of his brother-in-law's tirade gave him the greatest delight. As they talked, they heard plainly the commotion in the streets.

"I like the way you take things," said Phil. "The town's gone crazy, and there's a mob in front of your little toy bank, but you're not even peevish."

"Some old schoolmate threw a brick at me awhile ago when I went out for air and that annoyed me," Amzi admitted. "If those fellows out there who haven't any money in any bank, and never will have any, would only go home, I'd do something to relieve the pressure. I hanker for a chance to cross the street, but they won't let me. I called the mayor on the telephone and demanded that he send over the fire department and sprinkle 'em, but he said he couldn't unless I'd turn in an alarm--had the nerve to tell me it would be against the city ordinances! What do you think of that, Phil? Guess the police force is under the bed at home. But I can wait. There's nothing like waiting. Take it from me that you'd better trot along to your tea. You're rather cute in that hat. I suppose it burnt a hole in a ten-dollar-bill."

"Twenty-five, Amy."

"No wonder there's a panic! Go out and show yourself, so they can see what a plutocrat looks like. I guess that would cause 'em to break windows all right."

"Ungrateful old man! Main Street will be opened for traffic in a few minutes, thanks to the head under the hat you feign to despise. I sent Fred over to the college to bring the boys down to clean things up.

They're about due, methinks."